...

School was pretty great

(It's been awhile, no I'm not dead, just had a lot of things going on)

I sometimes think about certain aspects of my life

Knowing myself know and how I got here, I have come to realize the people who raised me and the real environment I was in, at least the most prevalent part, was actually my school

I'll say as much as my life has not been the best, my school life was probably the least of the stressors compared to home life

And sure, school was hellish in it's own way, with many scenarios leading me to have deep seated trust issues and fear of being left out, or even being seen as invisible

To me, as a kid, it felt more real, more genuine, people didn't tip toe around things or pretend everything was good, they just said it at face value, with nothing else to pull them back

And I think that was what was so addicting to young me, coming from an extremely quiet and rule abiding school environment, even country, to an extremely brutally honest and giving no shits environment, where students would talk back against teachers

And it was, so interesting

I think that's the reason why even when given the option to change schools as a kid, I didn't, because I knew I was getting the hang of the environment, and didn't want to start over all over again

Cause, well, once you learn the rules of the game your playing along with many other students, you have an idea on what you can do to be well liked and popular

Which is why I became the one kid that would circle between friend groups, many friend groups, for some I was always there, one year I was buddy-buddy with everyone in the class because I wanted to be the best version of myself

And even when there were some instances people did hurt me, I didn't really hold them accountable, I was still talking and being friends with them

Looking back I still don't hold any anger or hatred, since well we were all stupid kids who had no good adult supervision or teachers to even take care of us, kids who probably also came from not so great homes all bundles together in a batch, different classrooms each year

Yeah honestly it was always going to be a disaster, everyone was struggling and fucked up

Including me

I'd get angry and petty over simple things, try to get certain friends to hang out only with me and no one else, making a lot of inappropriate jokes, it was a mess

But every year, I tried my hardest to be able to fit in, and get along, and I probably did since a lot of people knew me in school by the final years of high school

And it's also made me realize that, I value my school life more than my home life, because it actually felt alive

Even if it was stressful at times, it felt genuine, it felt real, like I was actually present in the moment, and people were genuine

It was like a drug, and probably the only thing keeping me together at the time, hence why I became severally depressed and suicidal during Covid, go figure

I don't regret my school life, it did teach me a lot of things, good and bad things, a lot of things about life, how people change, how sometimes I wont even matter to most people, a hard lesson but it's there

And also how different environments can shape you as a person in the long run, both school and home life, and if your prevalent online than online spaces

This is probably just an entry dressed up as a love letter to my school life, cause it probably is, since it does hold a very strong part of my identity in it, it was fun, and I did have very good memories and friends from that time

We were all just kids in a school that had so many things going on with each of us, and I was more than happy to be with the crowd, and I was, and for a while I was so, so happy

Sneaking around the school grounds with friends during events, helping with bake sales, playing cards with classmates, chatting away in a group in costume right before a huge school play in front of parents, afterschool classes where I once just squeezed in one group and became friends with said group, all really fun and silly memories, wrapped up into one environment that I felt alive in for once

School probably did raise me to be who I am, but it's only the two years during Covid I lost, filled with terrible traumatic things, that made me change so drastically that I was a completely different person by the time I graduated

By the final year I was a husk, lost most parts of myself that made me feel like me, but oh well

It feels bittersweet, I do miss school, in general I wasn't always social, but I did like people, and just being around people made me happy and sane, even now, I don't even have to be talking just being around others makes me feel safe

School was tough for sure, life was absolutely horrible at times, and I'm probably really in severe shit right now

But I owe it to my school for keeping my shit together as much as it could, it probably being the only thing from falling too deep

Otherwise I probably would've done something by 11

Who knows?

I know not many people have a good relationship with their school life, and that's fine, it's pretty understandable

But when your home life is so fucked up and barren, that you'd rather choose the school where you had to mask to fit in, have to go out of your comfort zone, gone through toxic group dynamics and abandonment trauma, and have had terrible moments of you bawling your eyes out at school

Hell even praising it and seeing it in a nostalgic light?

That probably says alot, much more than I'll ever realize

- Murr